Wednesday, September 15, 2004
September 16, 2004
Dr. Phil
PO Box 1902
5482 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Dear Dr. Phil,
I have a new problem.
It’s my wife, Viola. You might have seen her on TV recently. She got arrested at the Republican Convention. She was the one who was yelling, “Bush Lied, People Died!” while the police were carrying her away. She was also yelling, “Drop Bush, Not Bombs!” She was also yelling, “Bush is Scary, Elect Kerry!” Did you see her? She was wearing pink.
Anyway, when Viola called me from the police station and told me she was coming home, she said she was bringing some new friends with her. I didn’t care. I just wanted my Viola back. So you can imagine my surprise when she came home carrying a box. You’ll never guess what jumped out of the box: Three kittens!
Dr. Phil, my wife’s brain has left the station! All she does anymore is wander around the house all day, wearing her Kerry/Edwards baseball cap and Kerry/Edwards pins all over her chest, except for the pin that says, “The Emperor Has No Brains,” and the one that says, “More Trees, Less Bush.” Also, she’s got a pin that says, “If you can read this, you’re not the president.”
Anyway, she wanders around all day with her cap and her buttons, and she follows the kittens wherever they go. She calls me from the living room, “Carl, come quick! You have to see this!” And I come dashing in, just in time to see Fluffy and Mugsy chasing each other up the curtains and turning them into Swiss cheese.
Or she’ll say, “Carl, you should have seen what Tiger and Boomer just did! It was so cute!” Then she’ll go into a long story about how Tiger and Boomer leaped and flew and wrestled in mid-air and broke something.
Did you notice something? Did you notice I told you Viola brought home three kittens, but so far I’ve mentioned four? That’s because we have a lot more now. Every time Viola hears a new poll saying Kerry is behind, she says, “That’s it, Carl. I’m off to the animal shelter!” And an hour later, she comes home with another kitten or two.
Every time Viola sees Our President in his sweat-soaked blue shirt, yelling to a huge red, white, and blue crowd that He’s going to make us SAFE! from TERROR!, she says, “I’m outta here!”
Then: “Why doesn’t that moron ever change his shirt!?” and the door slams behind her. An hour later, back she comes with more kittens.
“Aren’t they precious?” she says, her eyes welling up.
Kerry’s been having a lot of bad news in the polls lately, and Our President has been talking a lot about how He’s making us SAFE! from TERROR!, which means my house is full of furry flying wrestling acrobats! It’s a cross between Romper Room and Wild Kingdom! I can’t tell you exactly how many kittens we have now because they won’t hold still long enough for me to count them!
But Viola is getting scary. The other day I heard her laughing hysterically. I followed her voice up to the bedroom and found her sitting on the floor, covered with kittens. But she wasn’t laughing anymore. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was crying, “We’re doomed! I can’t take another four years of that monster!”
“What monster, honey?” I said.
She gave me that look she gets when she’s about to go on a rampage about Our President, but then she got real quiet and calm, and she whispered so quietly I could hardly hear her above all the screaming kittens. Here’s what she whispered:
“Carl, if Your President wins, I am not going to get any of these kittens fixed. They’re going to make lots and lots of kittens. And guess what else? I’m going to keep them all. And then you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to watch them. I’m going to stay right here in this house and watch kittens until Your President goes away.”
Dr. Phil, you understand women better than anybody. What’s wrong with my Viola? Could it be something she’s eating? Is there a pill she can take? I’m worried, because Oregon is a swing state and I think she’s still Undecided. Every vote counts! I only have 47 days to convince her!
Time’s a-wasting! What should I do?
Sincerely,
Carl Estrada